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After seeing him string Clare Crawley along till the last possible moment on Monday’s finale (although to be fair, she blew a chance to leave on her last date) we watched him respond to Nikki Ferrell’s declaration of love with “I like you a lot” and a non-proposal.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. That honour was reserved for an uncomfortable After the Final Rose episode in which a combative Juan Pablo still couldn’t say that he loved Nikki and basically told host Chris Harrison and everyone else to go to hell.

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Nikki gamely claimed that she was happy and that it didn’t matter that Juan Pablo hadn’t said the L-word. I’d say this “relationship” is already past its best-before date.

As for Clare, she finally stood up for herself, tearing a strip off Juan Pablo in Saint Lucia and then refusing to speak to him on After the Final Rose, telling Harrison, “I don’t want to sit here on this couch and get fed any more BS.”

Juan Pablo was unrepentant about his behaviour with Clare or anyone else. And the happy go lucky El Bachelor was no more. Juan Pablo made it clear he couldn’t wait to be done with The Bachelor in general and Harrison in particular. He accused the host several times of interrupting him — it brought back memories of Jake Pavelka and Vienna Girardi, but without the tears and hand-chopping motion — and refused to give even a hint of his future plans with Nikki.

As Harrison said, “Another season of The Bachelor has come to an end. I’m not gonna lie, I’m OK moving on.”

Clare’s visit went pretty much as you’d expect: lots of smiles, hugs, chats and fawning over the little girls.

The most interesting conversations were with mom and dad.

Nelly warned Clare that Juan Pablo was “super hyperactive” and “sometimes he is very rude.” He’d even made his mother cry.

But Clare had her love blinders on and was all JP’s just honest and he really gets me, and blah blah blah.

Dad Saul was the sweetest. He told Clare, “You are nice girl and mature and secure, which is something … Remember always that you will have a father in me.”

She should have just asked Saul to adopt her and forgot about Juan Pablo.

Nikki meets Juan Pablo’s family: The family liked Nikki as much as they liked Clare, this despite the fact Nikki made them all sit and listen to a monologue about her “amazing” and “life-changing” experience with Juan Pablo.

This time it was Saul who warned that Juan Pablo was “not an easy guy” and “thinks he knew the truth of everything” (translation: he’s a know-it-all).

But Nikki was all my feelings are real, I’m ready for it, blah blah blah.

She imagined a typical day with Juan Pablo and Camila as going to the beach or the pool and playing games at night. Nelly said a typical day would be Juan Pablo “wake up, take breakfast and stay at home watching TV with the family or with Camila” (translation: the guy’s a couch potato).

If that wasn’t enough, Rodolfo asked Nikki how much “fighting” she could take and warned that Juan Pablo walked away from relationships when things were getting rough.

Silly Nikki was undeterred.

Clare’s final date: Clare and Juan Pablo set off in a helicopter to take in the scenery. Clare was on Cloud 9 surveying the mountains and sea with Juan Pablo next to her, anticipating a possible proposal. Juan Pablo was focusing on how sexy and cute Clare was and how she kissed. That was the perfect setup for what happened next.

As the helicopter landed, in a rare moment when the cameras weren’t listening in, Juan Pablo whispered something to Clare. The first part, according to her, was that he didn’t really know her and she didn’t know him. The second part, which took a while to winkle out, was that he wanted to fornicate with her, although apparently the other F-word was used.

Clare was shocked, offended, insulted, confused and said that “if he can’t tell me that he knows me well and this relationship goes further than a physical connection I’m out of here.”

Sadly, though, she wasn’t.

She confronted Juan Pablo when he came to her suite for part 2 of the date. He danced around the issue for a while, even chastising Clare for breaking her agreement to stop kissing him after their first one-on-one date.

Then he said that he could see himself with Clare. In the next breath, he said he was having a hard time deciding whether to propose and still questioning whether he was ready, but Clare seemed to block out that part of the conversation.

“Who met my family? Who met Camila?” cooed Juan Pablo. “I want you to be here, you’re special to me.”

Then he started talking about having a baby and moving in together, and Clare was putty in his hands. Juan Pablo played the song they danced to on their first date on his phone (Josh Krajcik’s “No Better Lovers”) and the kissing began anew.

Nikki’s final date: Nikki and Juan Pablo spent part of their final date on a catamaran and if Juan Pablo propositioned her she wasn’t saying.

But that didn’t mean she was at ease. She said she was in love with Juan Pablo and worried that he hadn’t said he loved her too (although typically the L-word isn’t used till the Bachelor pops the questions). JP brushed off her suggestion that he wasn’t opening up.

Among the non-meaningful conversation they had on the beach was what they’d do when they no longer had private islands to hang out on. “I have a bed, TV. We can watch whatever, movies, sports . . . watch some baseball, too.” Wow, sounds dreamy.

In Nikki’s suite, she was pensive but kept her worries to herself. She presented Juan Pablo with a photo album of her “most favourite moments,” with him, including their horseback ride, with that awful fringed bikini top immortalized on the album cover. And she signed the card, “I love you, Nikki.” All that got from Juan Pablo was a whispered “thank you” and a bunch of besitos.

When he left, Nikki sat on the couch and cried.

The final rose ceremony: Clare’s boat was the first to pull up to the beach where Harrison was waiting, so we knew she was about to get dumped.

I presume it’s a show requirement that the ladies make a speech to the Bachelor because, otherwise, why would they open their mouths before they knew his intentions?

As Juan Pablo held her hands, Clare told him, “There were times where I wanted to bolt, times that just scared me to death and times where I would question things, but I’m standing here right now with you because we have something special and I believe in you.”

Once he’d tried to butter her up by telling her she was unbelievable and amazing, Juan Pablo lowered the boom: “I gotta follow what I think is best for me and, uh, I have to say goodbye to you.”

Then he tried to move in for a hug and Clare pushed him away.

“This entire time I’ve stuck around because I believed in you and the other night on our last date . . . I gave you the opportunity right then, because I’ve been scared of this, and for you to sit there and tell me that you can see yourself in Sacramento, that you can see yourself if we got together and had our babies. . . . You had every opportunity . . . to tell me exactly how you felt.”

“Do you know when I made my decision?” said Juan Pablo.

“It doesn’t matter to me,” said Clare. “I lost respect for you, because I’ll tell you what, I thought I knew what kind of man you were. What you just made me go through I would never want my children having a father like you.”

That send-off made it hard to imagine he had anything romantic to say to Nikki. And that was right.

Among other things, Nikki told Juan Pablo, “This is a once in a lifetime for me and not just the experience but, like, a feeling way. I can’t imagine spending my life without you. I don’t want it to stop and I don’t think it will. I love you.”

And what did Juan Pablo love? The way Nikki cared about other people and her honesty, “because you’re like me, very honest.” And she’d make a good stepmom for Camila. But he wasn’t going to use the big Neil Lane ring in his pocket.

“I’m not 100 per cent sure that I want to propose to you, but at the same time I’m 100 per cent sure that I just don’t want to let you go. I like you a lot, a lot,” he said.

Nikki smiled as if her face would crack, nodded her acceptance of the final rose and was rewarded with generous helpings of Juan Pablo’s tongue.

After the Final Rose: Harrison brought Clare out first. She acknowledged that she should have left after the final date but stayed because she thought Juan Pablo was serious about marriage “and I just wanted to have hope for it.”

Offered a chance to speak to Juan Pablo, Clare said, “Looking back and thinking about that day in Saint Lucia, that day was pivotal for me because I had never been able to stand up for myself to a man before and I think so many women can relate to that, where you want to have a hope, you give it chance after chance. It was so liberating to be able to stand there and say, ‘This is exactly how I feel and it’s not OK,’ and to be able to stand there and say every single word how I felt and get it out there that day in Saint Lucia, that was my closure, that was all I needed. . . .

“I don’t want to sit here on this couch and get fed any more BS.”

Man, did the studio audience full of women love that.

Juan Pablo was out next. He said he was doing great, he hadn’t come on the show to play games, but “at the end of the day I made the decision that I thought was good for me and it is what it is.”

Asked if he had regrets, JP blathered on about how it was tough doing the show, but he loved it, but some people were going to get hurt, but he’s straightforward and “I don’t hide behind a computer,” likely a dig at all the online criticism of him.

When Harrison tried to get a word in edgewise, Juan Pablo responded, “Can I talk?”

Harrison tried to get answers about the situation with Clare and the comment on the helicopter ride. Juan Pablo said it was a private conversation. He had nothing bad to say about Clare, he added, but “the goodbye was gonna be at some point. . . . Some things I didn’t like, maybe, about Clare, I liked more about Nikki. I had to make my decision what was best for me.”

Then it was time for Nikki to come out alone. She told Harrison she and Juan Pablo were really happy.

“Is he in love with you?” Harrison asked.

“I don’t know, I hope so,” she replied.

She admitted he’d never said the word and that had been a “struggle,” but he cared about her a lot, he was invested in the relationship and they were happy, which should matter more than anything.

It all started to sound increasingly hollow as Juan Pablo came out, planted a modest kiss on Nikki and insisted to Harrison they were both happy and excited about starting their relationship as “a regular person.”

“So you love her?” Harrison asked.

“I’m not gonna answer that question to you,” Juan Pablo replied.

“I don’t get it,” said Harrison.

“People don’t understand that this is real life. When you’re with somebody you don’t say you love her or not,” said Juan Pablo.

Huh?

“We’re done with this show, we are so done,” he added, with the caveat that “we’re very happy we had an opportunity to be part of it and we met each other.”

“Like I said before when you interrupted me last time,” Juan Pablo began as the audience showed its disapproval.

“No, no, I’m being honest, like I said before, see I have to be honest. When he interrupted me last time, I’m every honest with people and I say things straightforward.”

Harrison said, “All right.”

“Great, you’re gonna interrupt me again,” complained Juan Pablo before launching into a tangent about people on their computers sending him text messages and saying “weird” things.

When the word “love” still wasn’t forthcoming, Harrison appealed to former Bachelor Sean Lowe, in the audience with his wife Catherine.

“As far as the whole love thing goes I know everybody works differently. The moment I knew I was falling in love with (Catherine) and wanted to spend the rest of my life with her I could not wait to tell her that,” Sean said to enthusiastic applause.

“Sean is different from me. It is what it is,” shrugged Juan Pablo.

“I sign up to find somebody, to fall in love with somebody but if at the end I didn’t propose it’s because I wanted to respect Nikki’s dad,” he said.

Oh, so it’s all Nikki’s dad’s fault for telling Juan Pablo not to propose if his heart wasn’t in it. We get it.

Harrison, who gets points for persistence, tried again to get Juan Pablo to say he was in love. All JP would admit to was being happy.

And finally, Nikki was allowed to get a word in. Faithfully, she picked up Juan Pablo’s theme, saying it didn’t matter if they were in love.

And besides, Juan Pablo “has a daughter, he doesn’t have just himself to think about.” (So it’s Camila’s and Nikki’s dad’s fault.)

Harrison asked a telling question: how long would Nikki give JP to say the word?

“As long as it feels right I’ll give it that length of time; once it doesn’t feel right then I think I’m gonna be out,” Nikki said. “For now, it feels right.”

For now? Excuse me while I swoon from the romanticism of it all.

Harrison moved on to ask about their future plans. They had plans, Juan Pablo said, but they were private.

“I don’t want to burst your bubble, but it’s not private after the show; it will be public,” Sean interjected.

Catherine also got a say, telling Harrison if she’d been in Nikki’s position she would have said no to the final rose and warning Juan Pablo, “Don’t slap the hand that fed you,” meaning The Bachelor.

“Twelve years I’ve been doing this, this is a Bachelor first, easily,” laughed Harrison.

The good news is that a new season of The Bachelorette is coming up May 19 and assistant district attorney Andi Dorfman, she of the Juan Pablo fantasy suite “nightmare,” is the star.

Unlike Juan Pablo, she appears to know exactly what she signed up for, telling Harrison, “I feel all in. I feel mentally all in, emotionally all in, physically all in. I am in a place in my life where I’m so ready for this.”

I actually find it a little sad that someone with such an interesting job would say it doesn’t mean anything unless she has someone to share it with, but I guess that’s the nature of the Bachelor/Bachelorette beast.

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